


Home is the Sailor

by Verecunda



Category: Treasure Island & Related Fandoms, Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 13:29:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15931403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verecunda/pseuds/Verecunda
Summary: Trelawney finds home quite small and dull after their adventure. Livesey resolutely disagrees.





	Home is the Sailor

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a set of kiss prompts on tumblr. For an anon who requested Livesey/Trelawney + "as a suggestion". It was a real treat to have an excuse to write something else for this rarest of rarepairs!

“Home again.” Trelawney leaned his arm on the chimney-piece, and cast a wide look about the library, with its dark panels and looming walls of bookshelves. “Don’t you find this little room quite stifling, after the open sea?”

“On the contrary,” said Livesey, “I find it pleasantly commodious, after that broom-closet I was compelled to share with you and the captain in the _Hispaniola_.” As if to better illustrate the point, he stretched out his legs and settled in his chair, the very picture of comfort.

They had repaired to the library after dinner, and were now smoking before the fire, very much as they had been on the night that Mr. Dance had arrived with Jim Hawkins, to tell them of what had happened at the Admiral Benbow. A scant few months had passed since then, but it seemed a deuced deal longer.

“Oh, tush, Livesey!” scoffed Trelawney. “You are the most unromantic fellow I have ever met. I mean that,” he added quickly, with a darting look at Livesey’s face, “in the adventurous sense, of course.”

Happily, Livesey’s response to this slip was merely to smile. “Just so. If it is unromantic to enjoy the comforts of home, and not to be in peril of one’s life, I gladly own to being the most unromantic man alive.”

“Come, sir! Putting aside that villain Silver and his band of mutinous dogs for the moment, surely there must have been something about the voyage itself that moved you? Why - the living motion of a deck beneath your feet! The sea-air! The thrill of the salt spray!”

“To be sure,” said Livesey, drawing musingly upon his pipe. “The delights of never being truly dry from one day to the next, mould upon all my books. Unwholesome food, foul water, pestilential air between decks.”

“Bah,” cried Trelawney, though he could see from the doctor’s smile, and that particular glint in his eye, that he was merely drolling with him. “God’s love, how did I ever come to befriend such an unconscionable landsman? For the life of me, I can’t conceive how any man with a soul to be moved could resist having his head turned by the wonder of the sea!”

“The old soldier’s prejudice, I’m afraid. Suspicious of the sea and everything that goes upon it. Even if we had enjoyed the safest and most leisurely of cruises, my opinion would still be the same. And after our ordeals, I’m afraid it will be some time before anything will persuade me to go on another sea voyage.”

“I’m heartily sorry to hear it,” said Trelawney. “Oh, I don’t deny that we had a cursed deadly time of it -” here he paused, briefly overtaken by the memory of poor Redruth - “but I confess, sir, I quite enjoyed having you as a messmate.”

He understood Livesey’s feelings, naturally. His old friend made no secret of the fact that he was happy to put his foreign service behind him, but in truth, Trelawney had always quite envied him for it. The glory of the sea, and the prospect of foreign climes, had always held the strongest fascination for him. As a boy he had longed for nothing else than to follow the sea, had devoured book after book upon the subject, his imagination fired by tales of doughty English heroism amidst battle, storm, and shipwreck. He had even gone so far as to beg his father to allow him to enter the navy as a midshipman. But the old squire had planted his foot very firmly down upon that dream, insisting that his place was at home, learning his duty to the estate and the dignity of their name. And so he had. 

Oh, it was a worthy place in life, he would never deny that, but he had never lost his taste for travel, and had made up for it by going abroad whenever the estate could spare him. He had seen swathes of the Continent, America and the West Indies, even a little of Africa, and when he returned to the old hall, his feelings were always the same.

Something of his feeling must have shown in his face, for Livesey looked closely at him, then said, gently, “I am sorry to have disappointed you.”

“Never think it, Livesey,” said he, waving the notion away in an instant. He paced about the hearth-rug for a few moments, then came to sit in his own chair. “You know how I am when I return from being away. This place always seems so small and commonplace compared to elsewhere. There’s no novelty - no diversion!”

“You will allow me to disagree with you on that point,” said Livesey, “for I find the small pleasures of home to be the most agreeable. Indeed, I can think of several things that one can enjoy far more readily, and in greater comfort, at home, than anywhere else.”

His tone was so determinedly mild that Trelawney’s ears pricked up. “If I know you at all, Livesey, you have something very particular on your mind. Come, man, what are you proposing?”

At this, Livesey’s smile broadened, his dark eyes fairly shining in his sunburnt face. Sparing a brief glance towards the library door - to make certain that they were quite alone, and in no imminent danger of being disturbed - he leaned forward in his chair, slipped his free hand around to the nape of Trelawney’s neck, and laid his lips lightly, but very purposefully, against Trelawney’s own. His lips were warm and dry, his breath sharp with the taste of his tobacco, and he lingered long enough to make his meaning quite plain.

“Oh!” exclaimed Trelawney, feeling the heat rise in his face, even as a broad smile broke out upon it. “Well, there you have me, sir! Upon my soul, there you have me!”

With an air of satisfaction, Livesey leaned back. “There is my proposal, sir. All that remains now is the question: what do you say to it?”

“Say to it! I say that we have been sitting here, smoking and yarning like a brace of old windbags, quite long enough! I say, sir, that it is high time we retired!”

“John,” said Livesey, “I am quite of your mind. Pray lead the way.”

So Trelawney led the way, and as he did, he was forced to reflect that, as usual, Livesey was in the right of it. Hang foreign climes - at least for now. There were rare pleasures to be found at home, after all.


End file.
